Playing blindfolded

So I finally did the blindfolded performance. It was a benefit for the blind administered by the local Lion's Club. My dueling partner dreamed this up. He would play onstage for 24 hours with a blindfold on. There were 3 other pianists that rotated through the opposite piano for the entire 24 hours, also with blindfolds so that my partner was never up there alone. It was quite an experience to do a dueling show blindfolded. You can't see the audience, and therefore the interaction with them is difficult. We had spotters behind us that would read us the requests and tell us when someone tipped or when someone donated to the Lion's fund. In general, once I had my finger positioning I was fine as long as i didn't try to jump more than one octave. Sometimes I would loose your spot on the keyboard, thinking I was playing a G chord when I was actually playing a C chord. The few times that this happened I was able to stop playing completely and luckily my partner was playing correctly, and I'd continue singing while trying to locate my correct finger positioning. It was also tricky when my partner began a song in a key I didn't know. I would first have to locate the key by finding the root note on my keyboard by sound, and then using my fingers to discern which note/key I was playing. All in all it was a challenging task but the crowd gave us such love and all 4 pianists (and one drummer) had such a great attitude that it was great fun. All in all we raised over $5,000. And now I know i can do this shit blindfolded. I'm back in NYC for 3 days before headed back south for another 2 weeks.

Reciprocity

I worked a dueling job recently and was not invited back after my initial contract expired. I was told by the entertainment director that although he, himself liked my skills, a couple of the other house pianists didn't want to work onstage with me because I was too green and my music skills weren't sufficient. The E.D. is himself a weak player and generally defers to the opinions of the more experienced players. This upset me for many reasons. First, I my music skills are better than most that begin in this gig, secondly, I knew I just needed stage time and I would improve quickly. My music skills aren't really the issue. It's learning the syntax of this format. Thirdly, before he ever called me he was told that I was very new to this format and was looking for a working/training situation to improve my skills and get stage time. Finally, I know that my two detractors had once been green in this gig and mostly likely had to acquire skills after making many of the same mistakes that they were complaining about from me.

I come to find out that one of these pianists (let's call him "WhiskeyVoice") that didn't want me back ended up getting fired from the very same gig and came crawling to my current entertainment director and dueling partner, "Guinness" looking for work. So when I arrived to work last week, I found myself playing opposite WhiskeyVoice. After the gig was over he let me know how impressed he was with how far I had come in such a short time. I told him thanks, but no thanks to him. He stumbled over himself trying to explain his actions but I didn't really want to hear it. A few days later WhiskeyVoice called my current dueling partner (Guinness) and asked him again for work. Guinness, a very experienced dueler and no fool, responded by saying, "Oh I hear that you worked with Eddie before." WhiskeyVoice again stumbled over himself trying to explain why he blocked me from getting rebooked. Guinness suggested that perhaps it might be more helpful in the future to nurture and help the new talent rather than impede their progress, and no, he was not able to offer WhiskeyVoice any work at this time.

Intervention with Kristin Chenoweth

See more Kristin Chenoweth videos at Funny or Die

Sixteen dollar a pound chicken breast

A market opened up across the street from my apartment building. It's one of those real fancy ones that try and be like Whole Foods, with the organic foods and all that. So I was all excited as I entered the first time...that was until I saw the Chicken Breast. It was $16 per pound. I'm not exaggerating. Now, grant it, it was boneless, dye free, antibiotic, organic and grass feed, raised in a farm yard, not a cage, probably went to chicken dances on fri nights and had a feather bed to plop down in her hutch with a view after a long day of lounging around the barn yard and and all that. But really...SIXTEEN DOLLARS?? Who can afford this? And, even if you could, why would you pay $16 to give a chicken the good life before you killed it, threw it in the stew and masticated its tender blue-blood flesh? I mean for that money, I expect soooo very much more. I want to know what the chicken's name was. I want to know it's chick-hood nickname that only her mommie used? I want photos and hand-written letters from the chicken as it grew up, thanking me for sponsoring it's life of leisure. I want periodic video messages showing the chicken having fun at the thursday night mixers and the sunday morning brunches I paid for. I want a fucking ashtray made by the chicken, personalized to me. I want to know what the chicken's hobbies were, it's fears, it's hopes, how it spent its time in the barn yard. I want a letter from the grieving organic, grass-fed, gluten-free goose who was the chicken's lover and long-time companion detailing the chicken's final days and last words. THAT'S WHAT I WANT FOR MY SIXTEEN FUCKING DOLLARS!!!!!

blindfolded

In June I booked a dueling piano gig down south for the month of September. My entertainment director just called me 3 days ago and asked me if I was able to do the show blindfolded. Apparently he is doing some benefit for some blind kids and is playing 24 hours with a blindfold. Since I am scheduled to be up on stage with him for 5 of those hours, he wants me blindfolded also. Like this gig isn't difficult enough with my eye's open!! He told me that we would have someone standing behind us to tell us what was going on with the audience and the written requests. Now, I want to be a good sport so I began practicing today with a blindfold (my favorite college shirt from a gizzillion years ago rolled up and tied around my head), and at first it was really hard. I actually felt myself wanting to hyperventilate. But what I found after a while was that it limited my distractions and I was able to practice for a full 60 minutes without getting up and checking my email or my chat programs or the NY Times, etc. etc. And, although some of my left hand notes were inaccurate, it actually put me into a higher state of concentration and I was more involved with the musiic. When I was finished I didn't even want to remove the blindfold. I'll let you know how it goes in performance.

Overheard

Overheard in a conversation between a couple walking in the opposite direction that I was walking: "...Kids aren't stupid; they're smarter than most adults...."

I immediately thought, if that's true, which I think it is, maybe it's because kids don't "know" as much as adults, and are thus more likely to experience things deviod of judgement and preconception.

Mia Dona revisited 5 months later

In my blog entry for March 3, I spoke of my experience with the then new restaurant, Mia Dona on E 58th St in Manhattan. I noted that it was a great study in how to do a restaurant right but that I also had some very specific issues with some of the dishes. Well, last night I went out for a birthday diner with two dear friends at Mia Dona. My one friend was in the process of ordering the octopus appetizer and I warned her off saying I remember it being too salty. The server turned to me and suggested that I must have had it when the restaurant first opened and they have since "fixed" it. Apparently there had been a lot of feedback that the dishes were too salty. He also told me that the fries are no longer pickled in vinegar before being fried. You may recall that I had said in my blog entry that the fries were very good, but so bold that they overpowered everything else. Apparently that was the general consensus.

We went on to have a superb meal with great food and service. I have not one negative thing to say about this experience with Mia Dona. When I had first eaten there in March I had filled out a comment card saying I really enjoyed the experience but that the fries were too bold and the octopus and the pork chops were too salty. I'm guessing that I was not the only person to say so. How gratifying to see a management that is responsive to their customers. Now it is the perfect restaurant! A great vision, and superbly executed.

Random wierd guy

Tuesday night at 1:00am a couple my friends and I were walking from the Apple store on 5th Ave, over to this bar where we are friends with the bartender. As we crossed over Park Ave on 58th, there was a man standing on the corner, carrying nothing but a flat 9 x 11 manila envelope. As he saw us he made an initial advance towards us, presumably to engage us in conversation. My first thought was he was a wierdo and all three of us continued past him in our typical New Yorker fashion. On second thought, maybe he was lost and needed to be pointed back to Times Square. I turned back around and asked him if he was ok. He said very agressively and drunkenly, "Yes, I'm ok! Are you ok?" Alright, wierdo status confirmed. I didn't respond and we continued walking away from him. He then shouted at us that we were big dickheads. We quickened our pace, while he began walking/staggering in the same direction as we were headed, occasionally yelling . And don't you know, he ends up at the very same bar that our friend is working at. He actually got there first as we had made a small detour before arriving. As we came in, he moved his body to block our path, and we physically had to shove our way past him to escape from him once again. He had already found the only male hustler in the club and is groping his, um...merchandise and kissing him in a sloppy drunken way. The mysterious manila envelope is on the bar top. Once the hustler realizes that this guy is not going to "buy", he disengages and the man asks the bartender (our friend) to hold the envelope behind the bar for safe-keeping while he trolls the outside patio. The envelope has never been folded, and looks like it contains no more than 10 sheets of paper. It's rather unwieldy to carry around on a night out on the town, which leads me to believe the contents are important to him, otherwise, he'd have folded it up and shoved it in his pocket. We immediately egg our bartender friend on to show us the contents of the envelope, which he does. It was......a handout from his Anger Management class.

Stocks I like for a 5 year horizon

I was asked for some stock advice by a friend today and I figure I would post my response on my blog so I can go "on the record" with my opinions:

Everyone hates stocks now, which is the correct time to get in. All the economic downturn fears are priced in to the stocks! So you don't have to worry about an economic downturn. You're already receiving that discount! If you are looking for a long time horizon I'd park a couple thousand in the following:

Devon Energy (DVN): This is a longterm play on Oil and on Natural Gas. They derive half their income on each. The share price just took a major hit in the past 2 weeks since the price of oil and nat gas tanked. It's a great company and a good stock. It has been volitile as of late, but if you believe as I do that the price of energy will continue to march up in the next 5 and 10 years, don't worry if it looses value. It will come back. I originally bought it at $55 around 2 years ago and sold it at $111 a few months ago. I just bought back in last week at $91. That's about where it is today. I don't expect this stock to go below $75, but even if it does I will pick up more, for sure.

Goldman Sachs (GS): This company boasts the best minds on Wall Street and the most repected investment bank in the world. They were one of the few financials that were smart enough to get out of the mortgage investments before that hit the fan. They just got downgraded today because they are highly exposed to stocks and the analists feel that their profit is limited with the current bear market. This drove the stock price down. If you believe as I do that the stock market is a good investment on the whole, and for the long term, this company is a must have. The closing price today is a perfect entry point. Remember, you buy low, when everyone else is selling. The price has been driven down by people with a short time horizon.

PXJ - This is an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) that tracks the oil services industry as a whole. It is a bet on the sector that provides the drill bits and oil platforms, etc, etc to the oil exploration and the drilling companies. This sector was run up along with oil this year and when oil busted 2 weeks ago, this sector took a correction along with it. In my opinion it was not warrented, because most of the oil explorations and drillings are profitable with a price of oil over $60/barrel. Today after the current rundown from $140, oil is still at $112/barrel. Another note: During the 70's oil crisis, the oil services sector was run up over 1000%.

General Electric (GE) - This stock price has been run down recently. It's got a good dividend and is one of the best managed companies in the world. They recently entered an agreement with the Saudis, I think, where they agreed to buy a good chunk of the company over the next few years. What this does is put a continued upward pressure on the price of the stock, or conversely, it puts a floor on the price. It's got great international exposure and thus is not dependant on a strong dollar to make money.

Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM) - One of the best managed oil producers and refiners in the world. It's stocks been run down alot. The reasons for this price action are complex and I can't really explain it here. But it is a great company and a good long term bet.

Simon Property Group (SPG) - this is a Real Estate Investment Trust (a.k.a. a REIT). that owns, manages and developes retail real estate properties consisting primarily of regional malls, Premium Outlet centers, The Mills, and community/lifestyle centers. David Simon is the CEO and is one of the smartest names in the business. This may be a risky short term play, but luckily you aren't going to play for the short term. Real estate has been beaten down as you know, and may continue to be for some time but it will inevitably come back. Also, it's a bet on retail which is very much out of favor right now. My suggestion with this stock is to put a buy order in around $85 (It's at $97 today) and if it continues to decrease in price then BUY MORE! This is definately a long term play, but a good one. About 6 months BEFORE the economy turns around whether in 1 year or in 3 years, this stock will quickly rise and be a superstar.

My suggestion to you is to place some money in each of these stocks and let them ride for at least 5 years. Don't think about it, don't worry about, just do it and then forget about. Some of them may decrease in value from month to month. Some of them will increase. This is ok. That's what stocks do. These are not high risk plays and if this little 6-stock portfolio doesn't make you money in 5 years, then our entire economic model is in trouble, and this little stock bet will be the least of your economic woes. Finally, don't wait for the economy to turn around and the news to be rosy. Stock prices rise 6 months before the economy turns around. The market is a forward looking beast. The downturn has been, for the most part, priced in currently. Perfect investment time.

Peking Duck on E 53rd St.

I dined at the E 53rd st. location of Peking Duck with 2 friends this past week on a Tues. (8/5/08). Atmosphere was elegant and sparse although the lights were a bit too bright. Our waiter was an older Chinese man who seemed unhappy in his job. He was efficient, but unfriendly, and he scowled when we asked for food with no Garlic. We ordered the sizzling rice soup with shrimp for two ($9.50). The rice was not at all sizzling and the broth was devoid of any taste whatsoever. All three of us sent back the watery mess without eating it and it was taken off the check. For the main course we ordered Gran Marnier Prawns which is described as being "finished in a refreshing sauce w. a hint of citrus." I can't be sure, but the sauce tasted suspiciously like Jello brand lemon custard and had the same consistency as custard. I'm not exaggerating. It was definitely an unnatural taste that smacked of a taste laboratory off the Jersey Tpk. The Sliced Beef w. Scallops were good, but were served with sliced Garlic, after we had specifically asked our server to tell the chef no garlic. We spoke with the manager after we finished (and left about half the food on the plate) and he politely listened to our very specific complaints, but that was it. We weren't asking him for anything but even so, he did nothing. No complimentary dessert or apertif was offered, the check was not discounted, and no real apology. All three of us are New Yorkers to the core, we live locally and are experienced diners. We chose not to tip at all. We will not go back.

McCain Googled and a sprinkling of good old fashioned police brutality

I Googled John McCain. I clicked on the two sponsored links in the shaded blue area up top and the paid ads on the right side of the screen. John McCain pays Google for those clicks. ... Why did I do this? Because I own Google stock and am voting for Obama.

Strange thing. Blogger is the host of this blog site and is owned and run by Google. It has a real time spell check powered by Google that underscores misspelled words as I type them onto this blog. It flagged the second word of this entry as a misspelling. Ummm....who over at Google is asleep at the wheel here? I think I'll call investor relations on Monday and complain. And then look up John McCain on Yahoo.

Finally, this is NYC's finest. It happened July 27th. I'm so proud to live in the greatest city in the world.

Update from NYC

Am I the last person to get a facebook profile? I finally signed up and within a day I reconnected with about 20 people I haven't talked to in forever, including someone I dated 20 years ago. Anyway, if you know enough about me to look up my facebook profile, feel free to ad me as a friend.

I finished my N.C. gig and came back to New York in time to head to the Poconos for a huge family reunion that was great fun. Then back to NYC. My Missouri gig cancelled on me for August, but I have been invited down to Georgia for a tryout gig next week. I'm excited. I am up to 92 songs memorized, including 7 call-downs, some of which I wrote. The NC job did a lot to increase my confidence and I have gotten several very supportive allies in the past few months. I have officially promoted myself from trainee to newbie. Woohoo!!

My apartment building that I currently rent from just gave me a renewal offer that is 20% above my current rent. I responded with a counter-offer that will likely be denied (a 1% increase), and so I will have to rethink my living situation for an October move. I am really not sure what to do. I expect that I will be out on the road a lot this year, or perhaps even relocating somewhere for 6-12 months although I don't know where yet.

Sgt Jess

Tonight I drank with the 82nd Airborne. Apparently they are the most rapid deployed troops this country has. They can mobilize in 2 hours and be on a plane headed, well, anywhere. We drank shots of Jager to 2 dead men I never met. The toast was for the men, but after toast we tapped our glasses on the bar before putting them to our lips. That was so that Haji could hear it down in hell. Haji is the name of the enemy in Iraq, like Charlie or gook was in Vietnam. Sergant 1st Class Jess of the 82nd Airborne showed me his scar from an injury that kept him down for 9 months. It wasn’t pretty. He still feels bad that because of that he was unable to “return to the wire” to stand alongside his unit. After 9 months he is now fully recovered. His next deployment is Afganistan.

Update from an airport in NC

Well I have finished the first MO tour and am now stuck in an airport in NC, waiting for my connecting flight to Nowheresville, NC (2 hours late and counting) where I will spend two weekends at a Dueling bar. I have 3 days off where I will meet my friend R in Raleigh, where I've never been but have heard it's a fun and vibrant city from my brother who at one time was considering living there. I have been asked back to Missouri for the month of August which will give me two weeks off in July to spend with my people and my things in NYC. After I finish the MO gig in August I am booked back here in NC for the month of September. Then I need to figure out my living situation back in NYC since my current lease is up in Oct. This past year I've lived with my best friend in NYC, but I suspect that next year I will be on the road more than I will be home so I'm not sure I want to commit to a full year of NYC rent. Meanwhile, I will try to re-rent out my own apartment when my tenant's lease is up in January as I like that money coming in.

The Turtles at St. Louis City Museum

If any of you remember my entry on March 9, it was about seeing two tortoises mating on the National Geographic Channel. Well this is the strangest thing. I had two days off from my piano gig and drove to St. Louis, MO where I knocked around for a couple days. It was suggested that I not miss the City Museum, and indeed when I went there I found it great fun. There is an aquarium within the Museum and there are 5 turtles living together. When I came upon them they were decidedly busy with each other as the picture below that I took with my phone will show:One of the cleaning ladies came over next to me and we both watched with fascination as these two pair of turtles had at each other, while a 5th (male) turtle stood just behind the two couples, no doubt waiting his turn. We could hear grunt-like noises coming from them as the shells knocked about and the males' necks strained out of the shells as they came closer and closer to turtle nirvana. As the grunting and knocking got louder, I took this picture:Just for clarity, and since i am nothing if not helpful, I will magnify this picture so you can see the back of the female turtle on the right (bottom):There it is for all to see. THE MONEY SHOT! Notice the drool that the cad has left all over her pretty little back as he...um....fertilizes her eggs. And within 30 seconds of the drool appearing on her back, the male has disappeared, as you can see in the following picture, after riding her hard and putting her away wet. The turtle actually moved faster to get away from his date once he was finished, than he ever did during his carnalities. Some things are universal, yes?

Update from MO

I finished my first week of work in the Midwest. All is well. I like the guys that I work with, with only one exception. We work in a band shell on the nice days and inside a bar on the rainy days. I think the season is beginning to pick up as there were more people this week than the previous weeks from what I hear. The band shell is on a lake and is part of an extensive resort facility in which people on three different levels of balcony's with tables (essentially 3 separate clubs) overlook our performance. The tips are poor but the people are fun and nice and so that makes it worth it to me. I've gotten positive feedback from many of the other players including the entertainment director, so I'm happy about that. There is one guy that by his own admission doesn't even like the gig, but he's been doing it for so long and the money is so good that he is stuck doing it. Onstage he can at times appear as though he is thoroughly annoyed with the audience and there doesn't seem to be any interaction between him and whatever other player is opposite him. I heard that he ran some customers out of the bar with his bad attitude, and he alsonhad some unkind and very nonconstructive criticisms about my playing. That upset me, because I'm the first one to be open to constructive criticism.

On one of my days off I went down to visit my friend that had found Jesus. It was good to see him, and he seemed happy in a religious zealot kind of way. All his greetings including his outgoing phone message involved the Lords blessings and when I left to travel to Kansas City, we had to hold hands as he invoked the Savior's blessing upon my travel. But it was good to see him, and we had a nice day, although he seems to have lost any sense of humor about the foibles of humanity, curse words or gay culture. After we had had lunch, dessert and spent a couple of hours in a basement practice room of a local college waiting out a tornado, he felt compelled to give me his "story" of how he came to Jesus. As distasteful as I find Born-Agains, it had been suggested to me by a very wise man that instead of finding differences, that i might look for the similarities between his experiences with religion and my own spiritual experiences. With that in mind, I heard all of the revelations, and life changes he had experienced and I immediately related to much of what he said. I told him this, and although he didn't say it, I just knew that there was an undercurrent of disbelief that I could possibly have had such profound spiritual experiences without being Christian.

Now my friend has been gay since he first had sexual feelings at 12 years old. He had told me that since he has found Jesus he is no longer gay and has met the woman that he will one day marry. As he described her, it sounded more like a gay man's fag hag than a fiance. They've been very close for a couple of years, but apparently haven't kissed. I asked him if he was sexually and physically attracted to her and he told me that "when the time comes, Jesus will see to it." What do you say to that????

born again

After I found out about the MO gig, I realized I know someone close (2.5 hours away) from the resort that I’ll be working. He used to be one of my closest friends for about a year here in NYC. He is another piano player/singer and also writes beautiful music. Well about 3 years ago he left NYC and found his way back home where he promptly found the Lord and decided that he wasn’t gay anymore. Now he is thick into the morass of having accepted Jesus Christ into his heart as his personal lord and savior, and all that goes with that. I really don’t think we will have much to talk about. I suspect I may scare him because I represent everything that he used to be. And I’m happy…and that may be the scariest thing for him. At best, I expect to find him distasteful and boring. At worst…well, I shudder to go down that path. It continues to boggle my mind at how really intelligent and highly creative people can get caught up in such a cult-like mentality. I’ll write more after I see him, probably sometime this week.

On the road again

I got a call Tuesday from a stranger asking me how fast I could be down in Missouri to take a dueling gig. Apparently the entertainment director in NC recommended me. So tomorrow (Sunday) I will be at a piano on a stage with total strangers playing the (now) 77 rock songs I have memorized. It's a nice arrangement. They are providing all travel, including a car rental while I'm there and accomodations. I'll be performing 4-5 times each week split between two places, one of which is a large outdoor stage on a lake. They tell me that this is the stage they put Willie Nelson on when he's in town. It turns out that one of the guys I made friends with in NC will be working these same venues. I'm really excited. It will be a busy summer.

Window art

My roommate decided to do an art installation on his bedroom window using colored "post it" note paper. The window overlooks the pool deck, so everyone at the pool saw it going up, one 3" square at a time. One the left is the view from inside the room, and on the right is the view from the pool. Pretty cool, right? Now I have bragging rights.

I found myself in many conversations over the past 7 years where I exposed strong opinions about everything from WMD's in Iraq to the manipulation of the American public through the corporately controlled mainstream media and religion. My brother in particular has asked me several times how I know certain things. It is my strong belief that if you rely on any mainstream media outlets, even the seemingly liberal NY Times or a foreign source such as the BBC, you will be fed what the powers that be wish you to hear. So how do I find truly contrarian information? There are many solid, well researched sources where you can access freely that the corporate-run press will not report. (If you are interested, ask me for specifics.) One of the best sources are books and memoirs. Because they are not controlled by the media, per se, the rules are different. The only thing that the publishers care about is, will it sell. Does it spin a good, readable story? And because there is much more room for detail and background in a book, you get a much clearer and nuanced account of whatever is being discussed.

When the book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" came out in 2004 I read it in about 3 days sitting on the floor of a Manhattan Barnes and Noble store. This book was entertaining and very frightening, written as a first-hand account of how the US manipulates and essentially takes over weaker governments using tools such as the IMF and the World Bank. Sounds boring? It isn't, I promise you. It may be the most fascinating work of non-fiction I've read. If you want to know the forces that run the world and why wars are fought read this book, and others like it. The reason I am blogging about this 4 year old book is that the author, John Perkins wrote another title that recently appeared in my local B&N. It's called: The Secret History of the American Empire. If you know what John Perkins has been doing since the early 80's (read the first book), you will know that he is an insider that can do justice to such a grandiose title.

I guess my point is this: so many people have such strong opinions about our government and politics and policy, but rarely do people bother to really dig down to figure out what the story is beyond what is spoon-fed to them. There is great information out there; well researched, well articulated and readily available. Don't come at me with vitriol because you don't agree with me if you've never read! Because chances are that you are being manipulated and you don't even know it. READ!